VISUALISATION OF SEMANTIC ARCHITECTURAL INFORMATION WITHIN A GAME ENGINE ENVIRONMENT

Pieter Pauwels

Ronald De Meyer

Jan Van Campenhout

AR / VR visualisations

Re-use / Interoperability through IFCBIM

Building Performance CheckingVirtual Environment

4D / 5D planning

…

BIM model

World Wide Web

Semantic Web

The Linked Open Data Cloud (LOD) LOD

cloudLOD – May 2007

Linked Data: Now what?by Tom Heath: Presentation at ESWC2010.

http://videolectures.net/eswc2010_heath_ldnw/

LOD – Sep. 2010Linking Open Data cloud diagram

by Richard Cyganiak and Anja Jentzsch.http://lod-cloud.net/

LOD

cloud

E-commerce sites

LOD

cloud

Search agents

Digital Heritage archives

Government applications

…

LOD cloud

UGent MultiMediaLabhttp://multimedialab.elis.ugent.be/

Dr. Ir. Davy Van Deursen, Ir. Ruben Verborgh, Dr. Ir. Jos de Roo Prof. Dr. Ir. Rik Van de Walle

UGent SmartLabhttp://smartlab.elis.ugent.be/

Ir. Arch. Pieter Pauwels, Ir. Arch. Ruben Verstraeten, Ir. Arch. Tine Jonckheere Prof. Dr. Ronald De Meyer, Prof. Dr. Ir. Jan Van Campenhout

Bring BIM into the Semantic WebBIM

LOD

cloud

BIM

Example: ‘Intelligent’ Virtual EnvironmentsBIM

See video on: http://www.graphisoft.com/ftp/marketing/vbe/int/01/01.html

‘Intelligent’ Virtual Environments

1. The quest for extra information

2. What virtual environment to use?

3. Bringing the information into a virtual environment

Bring BIM into the Semantic WebBIM

LOD

cloud

BIM

It exists: upload!BIM

LOD

cloud

http://ninsuna.elis.ugent.be/IfcRDFService

It exists: query!

http://ninsuna.elis.ugent.be/SPARQLEndpoint/

BIM

LOD

cloud

It exists: browse!BIM

LOD

cloud

http://ninsuna.elis.ugent.be/rdf/page/ifc/IFC2X3_TC1/ifcBuilding_36

1. The quest for extra information

2. What virtual environment to use?

3. Bringing the information into a virtual environment

What Virtual Environment to use?

- Investigation of existing virtual environments

- Decision to build a new virtual environment relying on existing game engine technology

- Investigation of existing game engine technology typically used for visualisations in construction industry

An alternative Virtual Environment

1. Esperient Creator

2. 3DVIA Virtools

3. Unity3D

4. Quest3D

5. StoneTrip ShiVa

The best choice?

“None fits, each is possible”:

1. Relatively small differences in functionality

2. Limited level of information exchange with AEC / BIM tools

3. Importance of ‘side parameters’: cost, development support, usage statistics, etc.

=> Unity3D was our choice, BUT a more in-depth study AND usage is to be considered

1. The quest for extra information

2. What virtual environment to use?

3. Bringing the information into a virtual environment

Information exchangeInformation modelling in BIM environment

Information exchangeroutering of the model information

BIM model

FBX representation

IFC representation

export

export

Virtual world in Unity3D

import

BIM modelin LOD cloud

IFC-to-RDF Service

Real-time communication

Enriched BIM model

References to LOD cloud

Creation of the virtual world

Implemented functionalityconnecting FBX representation to the LOD cloud (1)

Implemented functionalityconnecting FBX representation to the LOD cloud (2)

SELECT distinct ?s WHERE { ?s <http://multimedialab.organon.elis.ugent.be/ontologies/IFC2X3#tag> "175853"^^xsd:string . ?s <http://multimedialab.organon.elis.ugent.be/ontologies/IFC2X3#representation> ?o

}

Implemented functionalitybasic user interface (1)

Evaluation

Main objectives achieved:

- Bring BIM information into the Linked Data cloud

- Easy visualisation of building models in a virtual environment

- Access BIM information and other information in the LOD cloud from within a virtual environment

Further research needed:

- Further explore possible connections between building models and information in the LOD cloud

- Improve the user interface for a more intuitive usage

Thank you

Pieter Pauwels

pipauwel.pauwels@ugent.be